Bad Dream
by Alitheia
Summary: Kaminaga knew he was dreaming when he saw Tazaki… with rabbit ears.


**A/N:** Joker Game © Yanagi Koji and I do not gain any profit from writing this fanfiction.

I was listening to Soley's **Bad Dream** and suddenly this just came up. I have no other excuses. X'D English is not my first language so if you found any error I would happily (also appreciatively) revise it. (´・ω・`) Hope you enjoy!

* * *

He drowned in the feeling of falling.

Kaminaga had cut through waves in a freezing night under the snow, feeling salt throttling his lungs and burning his eyes. He had guns pointed to his head, knives drew bloodlines on his skin and swords swung less than a puff of breath before his neck. He had done all the most dangerous and craziest and foolish things that a man like him could ever think of—and none of them made him think that he wanted to die.

Now Kaminaga wanted to die.

His feet were cold, as though his shoes were taken off and he was cramming them into a bucket of ice water. It didn't take long for him to go numb, and slowly tottering to one side but the chain on his wrists and the hands on his shoulders held him back from slumping to the floor. The whole room spun, blurred and changed color. Kaminaga blinked over and over when the bulb-shaped head of Lieutenant Colonel Marks shifted against physics laws and everything twisted until he couldn't resist the urge to squeeze his eyes shut, clenching his teeth when blinding fireworks burst out behind his eyelids.

There was another feeling of falling, and maybe his body was shaken violently, then a string of questions brutally thrown at him, but his head felt light and Kaminaga couldn't make out any of them. He only focused not to let any crucial information off his mouth while the truth serum was still in effect—he could hear a howl in the distance, long and inhuman and laden with pain; it was his own voice—and he thought it'd better for him to die, oh just how much he wanted _to_ _die, to die, to die—_

A sudden blow of chilly wind made him struggle to flutter his eyelids, opened it again slowly and cautiously only to find there existed no longer the dingy, moldy walls where he had been detained, and instead laid a limitless horizon at the end of his sight. He looked down; his feet were bare and sunk in grass, as green and graceful as the field he used to traverse with his friends when he was still a child, back when he haven't been a spy and was still called—

"Kaminaga," Tazaki huffed, "you're finally here."

His head turned so fast that he could almost hear the sound of his neck crackling. "Tazaki?!"

"That's me."

But it wasn't the Tazaki he knew; for this Tazaki had a pair of rabbit ears, dangling from the top of his head like oversized antennas. They were white, and looked so soft that Kaminaga almost stretch out a hand to pet them. Though before he could even raise his arm, a pang hit his head with a long ringing of siren and for a moment he went deaf. No sound, no air; the beating of the heart in his ribcage stopped and the world went still. He opened his mouth to scream, but the Tazaki who had rabbit ears held him on the arm and put a finger in front of his lips, soothing, _shush._

Kaminaga couldn't recall when he shut his eyes, but when he opened it for the second time, the both of them had already been sitting at a round table, covered with chaste white cloth and a set of luxurious tea cups arranged between them. The wind had no longer been cold, and instead it stroked his skin tenderly like the pleasant summer breeze; only then Kaminaga realized how exhausted he had been and how he only wanted to drift comfortably to sleep; _eternally_.

Tazaki took the teapot and poured the brown liquid into a cup, adding two blocks of sugar just like the way Kaminaga liked, before sending it to him across the small table. "Your job is not done yet, but still, _otsukaresama_."*

"Is this the heaven or something close to that?" asked Kaminaga without taking a glance to his tea. He only stared at the man before him, clad in a navy blue suit that fitted him perfectly, just like the last time Kaminaga saw him last summer, on the crossroad near the station just before Tazaki left for Hsinking. Only at that time, everything was normal, without any rabbit ear sticking out of his black hair.

One of Tazaki's eyebrows lifted. "Why would you think so?"

"Because if the one I'm seeing instead of you was Miyoshi or Jitsui, the higher chances that I was in hell."

Tazaki chuckled. "They would probably turn your life into a living hell if either of them heard that."

"But I wouldn't worry about that now, right," with a long sigh, Kaminaga leaned his back to the chair, which he realized was just as white as the tablecloth, "because I'm dead, and no one could mess with my life anymore."

"Kaminaga," Tazaki's forehead furrowed slightly, his rabbit ears twitched, "you're not dead yet."

"Oh."

The man brought his own teacup to the lips and took a sip, then returned it to the saucer with a soft clink. His smile widened. "You want to ask where this is."

"Precisely."

"But you already knew." Tazaki's glance gave out a laugh, and it made Kaminaga smiled too.

"Of course."

Kaminaga's memory repeated the events happened to him in the last several hours. Arrested when he just returned to the studio where he now was living as Izawa Kazuo, brought to what he assumed as one of their quarters, getting questioned all night and Kaminaga was sure that his acting was flawless until that damned bulb head came with his freaking, newly developed truth serum. Not that he tried so hard being Izawa after that, because right after he entered the room Marks made it clear they had already known that Kaminaga was a D Agency spy. Neither that also made everything becomes easier, because they still injected him, and Kaminaga still desperately fighting the effects.

During training, Yuuki told them that there was always a possibility of getting caught in a mission and the enemy would do anything to spill information out of the spy. Kaminaga had prepared himself for all sorts or torture, including this; especially _this_. He had been trained to keep their consciousness in two layers, the inner layer to plan their mission objectives and other crucial things, while the outer layer is for all the things that would come out if anyone ever tried to dig up information from them. He was taught how to administer pain, channeling his attention, averting his brain to other kinds of things.

Those other kinds of things were Tazaki, with rabbit ears, inside his half-dream world between consciousness and subconsciousness.

"You're thinking of me." The man suddenly spoke, but they need not to confirm what they were talking about as this Tazaki was a part of his mind self-defense and they both knew what was happening inside Kaminaga's head.

"Yuuki-san said we should think of something relaxing and delighting," he answered simply.

"And you're thinking of _me_ ," Tazaki said with more emphasis, "with _rabbit ears_."

"I've always thought that it'd be funnier on your head, because you know, you're like a magician, and magicians normally pull out rabbits from their hats," Kaminaga laughed, dry, "it has its own irony."

"I prefer to pull out pigeons, though."

"I don't want to picture you with a beak."

"Plausible," Tazaki shrugged, his chair pushed backwards when he rose, "how are you feeling right now?"

"Like dying," Kaminaga saw his own reflection on the surface of the tea, "but I'm fine."

Tazaki crossed his arms when he arrived by his side. "You were just thinking of how you want to die; you're not okay."

 _Don't die. Don't kill._

" _Now_ I'm fine," he insisted, "you're here and that proved it."

Seconds felt like frozen sand, Kaminaga didn't know for how long and he didn't want to count, but he knew everything that happened after was muteness, loading the air with silence between the faint whispers of wind on the grass. _Peaceful_ , he thought, in that field only existed their table and emptiness stretched to infinity; peaceful and far and secluded from the war shadowing the country. If only the situation was a bit different, if only he was also a different man, Kaminaga might not mind to stay here forever, with the field that reminded him of his childhood and the Tazaki with rabbit ears who poured tea.

"In times like this, usually one would think of himself; like meeting some kind of alter ego," Tazaki broke the silence, "why are you thinking of me?"

Somehow it amused him so much that a smile reached his lips. "So I could talk to myself without feeling insane."

"Well, you can't pass the agency training without coming out a little bit insane." Tazaki laughed softly, and Kaminaga liked his voice. He would probably find the whole moment philosophic and retrospective if it weren't for the rabbit ears on Tazaki's head; Kaminaga couldn't focus, but that was his own fault.

Tazaki who had rabbit ears pulled out a silver pocket watch from his waistcoat, and instantly Kaminaga thought of the familiar scene from Lewis Caroll's novel. "I must go now," he said, lifting his face to see Kaminaga, "no, you're the one who must go because you need to wake up."

"But I don't want to wake up yet," he replied, sitting inside a stale room where a bright lamp put in front of him while being interrogated indeed didn't seem like a very fun prospect, "can't I stay here just a little longer?"

"Did London spoil you too much, Kaminaga?" Tazaki said. "Don't ask a question to something that you've already known."

He had no answer. The man started to walk away, but he grabbed Tazaki by the arm. Turning his head to Kaminaga, he had not a single hint of emotion in his facial expression though his eyes were curious.

"Are you safe?" asked Kaminaga quickly, realizing that the world he was now in was crumbling away slowly.

Tazaki who had rabbit ears stared at him, didn't bother trying to hide his appraising stare. Kaminaga stared back, hoping that he could find something in those obsidian orbs even though he knew well that he would gain nothing. His mind could create Tazaki, but it still _wasn't_ Tazaki and it would never be. The man then smiled, tired and gentle and suddenly Kaminaga realized the sun was setting behind his silhouette.

The man with the rabbit ears touched him on the chest, right where his heart supposed to beat yet Kaminaga couldn't feel anything but the tips of Tazaki's fingers. "I'm not the one who's being held and interrogated, you know."

He turned and ambled lightly through the grass, but his figure waned so fast as if he was running. Kaminaga shouted, "So that means I really, really, gotta wake up now, Tazaki? That's it?"

Tazaki didn't turn his head when he waved a hand above his rabbit ears. "Just think that everything is a dream. It'll be easier."

"Then this is a good dream," he replied, the Tazaki who had rabbit ears and the meadow started to blur, "because the one I'll find after waking up is the bad dream!"

The grass under his feet turned into tendrils, they twined around his legs like hungry claws and Kaminaga lost his balance. He fell again, with hands reaching for the sky and eyes closed, void engulfed him and air sucked out of his lungs. For a moment he forgot who he was, where he was and what he was doing. There was only blank, which he thought lasted for eternity.

Suddenly reality struck all of his senses like an explosion; the floor under his shoes became solid, handcuffs restrained him when he struggled and he returned to his hard wooden chair.

Kaminaga wasn't surprised at all when he opened his eyes and found the dull walls in his hazy sight, or when he saw Marks' face frowned and creased from not being able to scrape any valuable information out even with his truth serum. He drew in a long breath, beads of sweats turned rivulets on his temple, heart rattling like drums in his ears. Kaminaga couldn't remember anything clearly, but he knew he didn't let out even a single secret.

He blinked, again and again until the effects subsided and his mind could go back to focus.

The bad dream, started from now.


End file.
